On the way home from MWL's tonight, I had to go to the supermarket before closing to pick up lunch for the next tomorrow. Although I knew that the Shoprite in Tallman, NY was closing, I didn't know how empty the shelves would be. Saying that the shelves looked like this a month before the store's official closing would not be an exaggeration. Most of the goods had already been picked over, and only those items that would perish before the store closed were still being stocked. (Why keep a supermarket open if one can't find fresh veggies, meat, fish and dairy?)
I felt sorry for the people who work there, as they will have to drive to new locations if they want to stay employed. (This assumes that the staff has been offered jobs in the other locations.) In this environment, people who can't get a better job than working at a supermarket will likely have a hard time finding jobs elsewhere.
Luckily for the people who shop here, the Walmart next door sells many of the same items that are found at Shoprite, save for the items mentioned in the first paragraph. Yet, many of these shoppers will need to drive more than a mile further away to do their shopping. But this closure makes me wonder: Will Walmart expand its footprint on site to sell the remaining items that Shoprite used to sell? If so, did Shoprite terminate its lease to avoid direct competition with Walmart?
